


Closer to You

by starmeos



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Graduation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6482380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starmeos/pseuds/starmeos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tooru feels the threads unraveling, but Hajime is there to stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer to You

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little something for lis!!! happy birthday my starlight, i love you lots <3 i dont know if this makes sense or not..its a bunch of feelings honestly

In theory, Tooru should go home. Time spent after school hours in the gymnasium feel almost useless now. What is it going to help? Personal growth? Sure, individual practice improves skills and instincts, refines them. But practicing in the late hours of the night for a sport that requires five other people is useless without them. Receives, sets, attacks, serves- refining those skills is important to grow as an individual player, but you don’t win alone, not in volleyball. You win as a team.

A team that Tooru worked with and trained with for 3 years- his team. And he must leave them. He must leave the first years and all their potential and improvement. He must leave the second years that have just started to hone their skills. 

Tooru must leave the third years, his best friend, the people that played a huge role in Tooru’s own development as a player as well as a person. 

The ball speeds through the air in a jarring downward arc and roars as it hits the court opposite him, joining the other balls strewn about. His steps echo throughout the gym, slow and steady with an air of confidence that is easy to strip away and tear down when the right buttons are pushed. Yet the presence of that confidence alone is enough to make rivals cower. Hajime’s voice alone is enough to tear down Tooru’s walls and strip him raw. 

“You never stop training, do you?” 

“I can’t start letting go now, Iwa-chan. I do have to be prepared for university, you know.” Tooru offers a sickly sweet smile, one that Hajime has seen countless times; with the team, with his fangirls, with the professors and the coach. It falters just as Hajime shoots him a glare, warning him. Tooru doesn’t need to guess what Hajime starts saying- he knows it already, just from that single look. “I know, I know, I need to go home and rest, right? You worry too much, maybe you really are my mom, Iwa-chan.” Hajime grabs a volleyball and immediately throws it at Tooru’s face. The slight spin of the room upon contact and the sudden fatigue that washes over him suggests that perhaps he should listen to Hajime (but just this once). 

He thinks maybe Hajime looks at him with concern before walking under the net to pick up the stray volleyballs. Tooru looked away too fast, it’s hard to tell. Odds are he most definitely looked over to quickly check on him, reading him like a book, and silence falls over them. Its comfortable, familiar. Neither of them speak, neither of them have to. The changes in their aura alone function as words for them to speak. _It comes with the thirteen years of knowing each other, doesn’t it?_

Thirteen years of being incredibly close friends and yet Tooru is still scared of drifting apart. He wouldn’t allow that- he knows Hajime wouldn’t allow that. Even though Tooru is set on going to university in a different city than Hajime, he doesn’t want to be apart from him (Hajime won’t say it, but he doesn’t want to be so far apart from Tooru either. He won’t admit it, but Tooru knows). The possibility of practicing with each other decreases, both of them will become incredibly busy with club activities and school work and the part-time job that they both found and _oh_ Tooru wishes teleportation existed so he could see Hajime more often than they would be able to. 

“Hey,” a light bump to his head pulls Tooru out of his thoughts, glassy eyes shifting to look at Hajime. “I can hear you thinking from here, idiot.” A gentle touch of his hand, firm, soft, but ultimately reassuring. “We’ll be fine,” he says this, as though it were a fact, that Hajime could see into a crystal ball and predict that the both of them will be okay. Tooru doesn’t believe in crystal balls or the creases embedded in our hands at birth. But Tooru believes in him.

Hajime believes in them. He believes in their friendship, he believes in Tooru, he believes in himself. His words aren’t for Tooru, they aren’t hollow, they aren’t empty, he doesn’t speak them just to calm Tooru down. Those three words are brimming with faith and in trust. His words are spoken because they are true, because they are a fact. Nothing changed between them, not since they were kids, not since elementary school or middle school. Not throughout their years in high school, and they definitely won’t change during the upcoming years, even if those years are spent apart. 

“Promise?” Tooru speaks as if these are his final breaths, his final words bouncing off the all too familiar walls and hardwood flooring. Hands linger over the volleyball trolley with _Aoba Jousai VBC_ written across all four sides in white block letters. Three years worth of practice, three years worth of priceless memories and moments frozen in time in Tooru’s mind; he is reminded that Hajime is present in every one of those moments, every second, every minute, every hour. The air stills around them, winding up with tension before dissolving with the soft whisper of Hajime’s voice, and Tooru smiles with confidence so raw and pure the stars littering the night sky burn bright with envy.

“I promise.”


End file.
